The Diary of a Madman
The following are my notes on The Diary of a Madman, by Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy. These notes are subject to change in the future.
General Background Information
Tolstoy began to try to simplify his writing as he defined a standard that art should either:
- Expose religious truth
- Expose universal simple truth, available in any man’s life
He felt that his work didn’t really fit these standards, so he went out to try and write many basic Christian books.
Tolstoy criticized Gorky by calling him an inventor. This was a critique as he believed getting obsessed with form in art was pointless. One should seek truth.
As a critique of overly detailed prose: “take the details from the best novels of our time, what will remain?”
Tolstoy recounts a tale in his diaries when walking through a plowed field he spots a single Tartar thistle, broken down by the plow. This struck him as beautiful, and he wanted to write about how it clung to life even when everything around it had been decimated.
Gorky believes within this symbol, Tolstoy’s tendency towards artistic and inclusive creation is also reflected.
Hadji Murat represents a turn towards the thistle and its dignified defense of its life and values as the correct way for man to live. Not a sinner converted, or a holy fool, or a self conscious truth seeker, or sensually enslaved, or completely innocent, rather someone who is loyal to those dear to him, a natural warrior who goes about his life without clinging to any path.
Relevant Background Information
Tolstoy wrote this and based it on Gogol’s The Diary of a Madman, but its working title was The Diary of a Non-madman to establish distance from Gogol’s work. This work undoubtedly mirrors the crisis Tolstoy had in his actual life.
Plot Summary
Our main character believes himself to be mad, but also fakes sanity by keeping quiet so that he can do his ‘mad deeds’.
He recounts that this madness began in youth when he felt love but then was exposed to the sudden irrational hatred, fear and pain that people induce upon each other. When he would witness violence, pointless violence, which is in perhaps his view all violence, he would sob and bash his head against the wall.
After his childhood he is corrupted by sexuality. He “gives himself up to vice”. He describes himself as being healthy until he is 35. At this point he has a wife and is successful. He has gone to college, and studied law.
On the way to purchase an estate that he plans to use for timber to make a profit, he begins to feel a terror come over him. This terror is in effect existential fear of death. He loses all sense of being able to handle life, or any of the activities involved in living as the presence of death comes over him. Time ceases to be a dimension traversable but imperceptibly large, but rather is perceptible all at once. This causes his traversal of time to no longer be relevant, as he perceives all of his time together with death as the dominant flavor.
He attempts to busy himself with other matters, but can’t. He is struck by how painful it is only he feels this way, that others can’t see it.
He continues on with his life, not having purchased the property, but can not continue as before. He loses all interest in pursuing new things. He pursues his old things but with less vigor. He is now pious. This is clearly a result of feeling that death makes all pursuits pointless.
Eventually he is struck again by the same terror. This time it does not leave him as he keeps himself busy. He begins to beg god to explain why people live if they must die. To explain to him why he exists and what his purpose is if he must die. He gets nothing from god.
He eventually goes hunting and believes he will die. There he doesn’t dare to reckon with god, instead he feels god has already laid everything out. He becomes more religious and starts really believing Christian gospel. This leads him to feel better, but also deny reality and existence as it goes against the divine reality he believes in. Thus, his fear of death is alleviated.
Final Thoughts
This work does a good job of expositing the way existential depression can feel overwhelmingly powerful while also being an immediate and dismissable state of mind for the overwhelming majority of people. The religious turn is not so interesting to me.